In a typical ink jet recording or printing system, ink droplets are ejected from a nozzle at high speed towards a recording element or medium to produce an image on the medium. The ink droplets, or recording liquid, generally comprise a recording agent, such as a dye or pigment, and a large amount of solvent. The solvent, or carrier liquid, typically is made up of water, an organic material such as a monohydric alcohol, a polyhydric alcohol or mixtures thereof.
An ink jet recording element typically comprises a support having on at least one surface thereof an ink-receiving or image-forming layer, and includes those intended for reflection viewing, which have an opaque support, and those intended for viewing by transmitted light, which have a transparent support.
While a wide variety of different types of image-recording elements for use with ink jet devices have been proposed heretofore, there are many unsolved problems in the art and many deficiencies in the known products which have limited their commercial usefulness.
It is well known that in order to achieve and maintain photographic-quality images on such an image-recording element, an ink jet recording element must:
Be readily wetted so there is no puddling, i.e., coalescence of adjacent ink dots, which leads to non-uniform density PA1 Exhibit no image bleeding PA1 Absorb high concentrations of ink and dry quickly to avoid elements blocking together when stacked against subsequent prints or other surfaces PA1 Exhibit no discontinuities or defects due to interactions between the support and/or layer(s), such as cracking, repellencies, comb lines and the like PA1 Not allow unabsorbed dyes to aggregate at the free surface causing dye crystallization, which results in bloom or bronzing effects in the imaged areas PA1 Have an optimized image fastness to avoid fade from contact with water or radiation by daylight, tungsten light, or fluorescent light PA1 A) providing an ink jet printer that is responsive to digital data signals; PA1 B) loading the printer with an ink jet recording element comprising a support having thereon an image-receiving layer comprising at least about 70% by weight of porous polymeric particles in a polymeric binder, the porous polymeric particles having a core/shell structure comprising a porous polymeric core covered with a shell of a water-soluble polymer; PA1 C) loading the printer with an ink jet ink composition; and PA1 D) printing on the ink jet recording element using the ink jet ink in response to the digital data signals.
An ink jet recording element that simultaneously provides an almost instantaneous ink dry time and good image quality is desirable. However, given the wide range of ink compositions and ink volumes that a recording element needs to accommodate, these requirements of ink jet recording media are difficult to achieve simultaneously.
Ink jet recording elements are known that employ porous or non-porous single layer or multilayer coatings that act as suitable image-receiving layers on one or both sides of a porous or non-porous support. Recording elements that use non-porous coatings typically have good image quality but exhibit poor ink dry time. Recording elements that use porous coatings exhibit superior dry times, but typically have poorer image quality and are prone to cracking. U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,027,131 and 5,194,317 relate to an ink jet recording medium containing polymeric particles in an ink recording layer. However, there is no mention of porous core/shell particles.
Japanese Kokai Hei 7[1995]-172037, 2[1990]-127447 and 2[1990]-55185 relate to an ink jet recording sheet containing porous resin particles in an ink recording layer. Again, however, there is no mention of porous core/shell particles.
It is an object of this invention to provide an ink jet printing method using an ink jet recording element that has a fast ink dry time with minimal puddling. It is another object of this invention to provide an ink jet printing method using an ink jet recording element that is free from cracking.